Sentence forming game

ABSTRACT

A gaming system includes a set of cards wherein each card is marked with a plurality of words or phrases. The words or phrases in the plurality of cards include various parts of speech so that complete sentences can be formed by playing selected cards adjacent one another.

RELATED APPLICATIONS AND CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/658,891, filed Mar. 4, 2005, entitled “Sentence Forming Card Game” the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Technical Field

The disclosure contained in this document generally relates to games. More particularly, the disclosure set forth below relates to a sentence forming card, tile or other printable surface game

2. Description of the Related Art

Games, including card games, have been popular throughout recorded history. Games are desirable for amusement, and in some cases games can also serve educational purposes.

There have been numerous attempts to provide card-based games for entertainment, educational purposes, or both. I have found that it is desirable to provide a novel game that can serve as pure entertainment, or as an instructional tool to help with language skills development.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, a gaming system includes a set of cards wherein each card is marked with a plurality of words or phrases. The words or phrases in the plurality of cards include various parts of speech so that complete sentences can be formed by playing selected cards adjacent one another. Each of the words or phrases has a corresponding numeric value, which may or may not be displayed on the card, so that points may be counted for each complete sentence formed. The game may be played with actual game pieces, or the game may be in electronic form, with computer program instructions that instruct a computing device to display the cards and respond to user actions. Optionally, the game includes a timer.

The cards may be playing cards, tiles, electronic images or other items. The cards have a rectangular or non-rectangular shape, such as a pentagonal shape.

Optionally, all of the words on any single card have a relation. For example, the relation on at least one of the cards may include a relation of synonyms, conjugation or tense. A card may contain a set of words or phrases that are all prepositions, articles or conjunctions. A card may contain words that are a character set or place set. One or more cards may be wild cards that may represent any word.

In another embodiment, a method of playing a game includes receiving, by a first player, a hand of cards from a deck. The cards are marked with words or phrases, including various parts of speech. Each of the words or phrases includes a numeric value. The player forms a sentence from the hand of cards using words or phrases on the hand to form the sentence. A point value is counted for the sentence based on the numeric value of the words used in the sentence. Optionally, the player must form the sentence before a time limit ends.

The method may also include ruling, by a judge or jury including at least one second player, whether the sentence may be counted. The method may also include receiving, by at least one additional player, an additional hand of cards from the deck. The additional player may form an additional sentence from the additional hand of cards and counting a point value for the additional sentence based on the numeric value of the words used in the sentence. Additional hands may be dealt until one of the players reaches a predetermined point value.

In another embodiment, a computer-readable carrier may contain instructions thereon for instructing a computing device to implement a game, wherein at least some of the cards are marked with words or phrases as described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an exemplary playing card used in a sentence forming card game.

FIG. 2 shows four exemplary hands during play of a card game.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Before explaining at least one embodiment in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein, as well as the abstract, are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting. For example, all singular forms and the words “a,” “an,” and “the” include the plural reference unless expressly stated otherwise.

A sentence forming card game may be played with a deck of any number of game elements, such as cards, tiles or other printable surfaces. As used herein, the terms “card” and “game element” are used interchangeably and are intended to cover any such item. The deck may have any number of game elements, such as between 400 and 600 cards, or between 520 and 540 cards. Preferably, a number of cards will be provided that is sufficient to allow a variation of sentences to be formed.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a card 30 wherein the card has a pentagonal shape. However, in various embodiments some or all of the cards may have other shapes, including regular polygons, irregular polygons, circles, ellipses, etc. The cards may be of any size, but in most non-electronic embodiments will be sized so that they may be held by a human. For example, in the embodiment of FIG. 1, the cards may have five 2.25 inch (5.68 cm) edges and 108° corner angles. Other sizes and angles are possible.

Each card has one or more sides or edges marked with a word, words, or phrases 12 a, 12 b, 12 c to be used in sentence play. In various embodiments, the words on any particular card may be related. For example, the words on a card may be synonyms, different conjugations or tenses of a word, various elements of a concept (such as player positions on a sports team), or otherwise related. In FIG. 1, the exemplary words are “play,” “plays,” “played,” “playing” and “player.” As another example, a card may contain the words “run,” “runs,” “ran,” “running,” “runny.” As yet another example, a card may contain the words and phrases “dugout,” “right field,” “home plate,” “bullpen” and “pitchers mound.” As another example, words or phrases on a card may be related in that they are all prepositions, articles, and/or conjunctions or other similar forms of speech, such as “either of,” “down from,” “each of,” “during the” or “early in.” However, the relation of words on any single card is not required. For example, one or more cards may be considered “preposition-article-conjunction” cards that may have any combination of those various forms of speech.

In addition, although at least some cards will have a word or phrase associated with each side or each edge, some cards may have one or more sides or edges that are left blank. Some cards may be considered “character cards” or “place cards” in that all words or phrases on the card are a real or fictional person or place. Further, optionally one or more of the card edges may have a “phrase rule,” in which a player may select word or phrase that satisfies the rule. For example, a card may contain the names “Fred Rogers,” “Franklin R. Roosevelt,” “Father Time,” “Frederick Douglass” and “wild F name.” In such an example, “wild F name” is a phrase rule indicating that the player may select any name that starts with the letter F. The cards in the deck will include both various forms of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and/or other parts of speech so that complete sentences can be formed by playing selected cards adjacent to one another.

Each word or phrase on each card is assigned a point value 14 a, 14 b, 14 c, which may be selected arbitrarily or on any basis, such as the statistical ease with which the word can be played in a sentence. In some embodiments, a limited set of point values may be used, such as in an embodiment where values of 5, 10, or 20 points assigned per word on the card. For example, referring to FIG. 1, the words “plays”, “played”, and “playing” are easier to play than “play” and “player”, based on the number of times that each word is expected to be used in English language sentences. Therefore the portions of the card with the words “player” and “play” may be given a value of 10 points, while the card portions bearing the other words are worth only 5 points. Optionally, the point values may be printed on the card, such as adjacent or under the word. Alternatively, a “default” point value may be assigned, so that all words have the default point value, and only point values that deviate from the default value are printed on the card. Some cards, such as wild cards, may have no point value. Optionally, cards having no value may have a negative value if a player still has the card in his or her hand when play ends.

In one embodiment, the point values may be selected so that not all available word values exist on a card. For example, it is possible that only a few cards will contain a word with a value of 20 points, while more cards will have words worth 10 points and 5 points. Such an embodiment may make for a game requiring relatively few hands of play in order to reach the determined winning level. Of course other variations, including variations with words having a zero point value (such as for articles “a”, “an” and “the”), are possible.

Optionally, the deck may contain one or more wild cards, which can be used as any word but have no value or a low value when played. The deck may also contain dump cards, which may be used to exchange any portion of a player's hand for new cards from the deck. Further, the deck may contain spy cards, which allow the holder to view one other player's hand and seize one of the other player's cards. That other player may then draw another card from the deck. Optionally, when played, a spy card or dump card may be placed into the discard pile and may be picked up by someone else at least two turns away.

As noted above, FIG. 1 illustrates a card 30 having a pentagonal shape and five words 12 a, 12 b, 12 c with corresponding point values 14 a, 14 b, 14 c on the card. Cards may have other shapes and other numbers of words and/or point values. In addition, cards may be single-sided or dual-sided. Optionally, the words are printed near the edges of the card so that cards may be placed on top of each other to form a sentence, such as is shown in FIG. 2. Optionally, none or not all of the point values may be printed on the card.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary four-handed game during play of a game. Note that each of the players has laid down a sequence of cards aligned so that the words at the tops of the cards spell out a sentence in each hand 40, 22, 24, 28. The examples described below involve playing cards in a similar manner.

Optionally, the game set may include a box or container for holding some or all of the cards. In addition, a bowl or receptacle for holding a card pile may be provided. Optionally, one or more card racks may be provided, where the card racks are designed to hold the cards in a player's hand, in a word pool, in a discard pile, or in another group. The game set may also include a timer, such as an hourglass, stopwatch, wind-up timer, or other timing device.

The gaming system described above has potentially any number of variations of play. Some examples of game play are briefly described below.

EXAMPLE 1 Rummy-Style Play

Object: The object of each hand dealt is to be the first one to play all of the cards in the hand by laying them down so as to form one or more sentences of one's own or appending them to previously played sentences. The first person to use all of his or her cards stops the play of that hand, and then the points of the cards played are tallied. The object of the game is to be the first person to reach a desired number of points, such as 500 points.

Deal: For four or fewer players, thirteen cards may be dealt per player. For five or more players, ten cards may be dealt per player. Other numbers of cards per deal are possible. The balance of the deck may be placed face down, and the top card may be turned face up to begin the discard pile or “word pool.” Play may begin to the left of the dealer, and move clockwise, although other directions or starting points are possible. The deal may rotate to the next player.

Play: The first player draws a card from the deck or selects a card from the word pool. When playing from the deck, the selected card generally may be the top card, although in some embodiments the player may select a card that is under the top card. When selecting from the discard pile, the player may select any card from the discard pile. Optionally, if a player selects a card from the discard pile, the player must pick up all of the cards discarded before it or after it as well, and must play the selected card in a sentence during that turn. Optionally, a time limit may be placed on the player using a clock, stopwatch, hourglass or other timing device. The player tries to create a sentence or sentences from the cards in their hand before time runs out on their turn. When a player creates a sentence, the player then discards one card into the word pool.

The second player, similarly, draws a card and tries to create a sentence or sentences from their hand. The second player may also have the option to add onto any sentence already played. They may add on only to the beginning or end of an existing sentence

Optionally, the word pool or discard pile should not be precisely stacked, but rather should be stepped or fanned so that one card does not cover up all words on a previous card, as cards from the word pool may be picked up and used later.

Sentences may be short or long, so long as they are grammatically correct. For example, proper sentences may include “It goes”, or even sentences that stretch the imagination such as “The big brown dog ate the ship.” However, other players may challenge the sentence for improper grammar or other reasons. For example, if a sentence such as “Joe likes shopping on the moon with water” is played, other players may challenge the sensibility of the phrase. Fellow players can either accept or deny all or part of the sentence, and can make the player pick up all or part of the sentence if it does not make at least some sense. Justification and arguing the validity of the sentence may be part of the game in this embodiment.

After a challenge, the player who created the sentence may be allowed to create a new sentence if time has not yet expired. If a sentence is not challenged and the player still has cards remaining in his or her hand, play moves to the next player.

As noted above, a subsequent player may add onto existing sentences. Acceptable examples include:

a) The horse and the big brown dog ate the ship.

b) It goes around the block.

c) My daft expression is one of light and humor.

Preferably, a subsequent player is not permitted to insert words into the middle of an existing sentences. Examples of impermissible insertions may include:

a) The big silly brown dog ate the ship.

b) It never goes.

c) My daft and woebegone expression is one of light

Optionally, some or all of the other players may be considered to be a “jury” who can “vote off” a sentence that the jury feels is not correct. For example, if a player plays the sentence “Joe likes shopping on the moon with water”, the jury may vote it off by majority vote, in whole or in part. Optionally, the jury may either accept or deny all or part of a sentence and can make the player pick up part of a sentence if it does not make at least some sense. For example, the above-mentioned sentence “Joe likes shopping on the moon with water” is a sentence, but “with water” is stretching it a bit, so the jury may ask the player to pick up “with water” and place it back in his hand, while accepting the first portion as playable.

Arguing the validity of the sentence may add to the excitement of the game. For example, the challenged player may argue that on the moon, water is a rare commodity and hence can be used as currency and thus the sentence makes perfect sense. The question may then be voted upon by the jury, with the majority decision ruling. Optionally, the vote of the player who played the sentence counts only if there is a tie among the other players. Alternatively, or in addition, a referee or “judge” may be chosen at the outset, and questions of validity would be decided by the judge, subject to override by a majority of the players (the “jury”). Optionally, the title of Judge may rotate among the players, following each deal.

End of a hand and scoring the points: A hand ends when a player goes out by playing all of the cards in his or her hand. Points for each player are calculated by adding the point value of word and phrases played in sentences, and subtracting the point value of cards remaining in that player's hand. Optionally, the player who went out first may receive additional bonus points. Also optionally, if a player is able to play all of his or her initially dealt cards in a single sentence in one turn, that player may receive additional bonus points.

Optionally, multiple hands may be played, and points scored by each player tallied, until one player reaches a predetermined number of points, such as 200 points or 500 points.

EXAMPLE 2 Lightning Round Play

Object: The object is to be the first person to form a high-value sentence from a limited number of cards.

Deal: After the deck is shuffled, it may be placed face down to form a word pool. Each player takes a number of cards, such as 15 cards, from the word pool and may place or hold the cards face down in front of them until play begins. When play begins and time starts, all players will turn their cards at the same time.

Play: Players try to form one grammatically correct, sensible sentence and accumulate the most points, paying particular attention to utilizing cards with higher point values in their sentences. The first person to form a sentence then knocks on the table or makes another visual or audio signal. That person begins the round by reading their sentence aloud to the Jury (i.e., the rest of the players). If the Jury accepts the sentence (both grammatically and sensibly after any justification) that player receives a bonus, such as a 15-point bonus or a bonus having another value, for forming the first sentence. Play continues as other players knock on the table when they are ready to read their sentences aloud and be judged. The order of play is based on who is ready to be judged.

Scoring: At the end of a round, when all players have read their sentences aloud, count up the point values for the words used. All words not otherwise marked (some special words contain 10 or 20 or other point values) may be worth 5 points. Wild cards may be worth zero points. Other point values are possible. The first player who formed a sentence may also receive the bonus described in the previous paragraph.

Mega-Bonus: If a player can use all dealt cards in one sentence, and the sentence is accepted both grammatically and sensibly by the Jury, then that player may receives a 25-point or other bonus.

Beginning Subsequent Rounds: Optionally, any cards not used to make a sentence may remain in the player's hand. The players may then draw the balance to make a full hand, such as 15 total cards. Each player should begin each round with the set number of cards for a full hand. Play continues as described above.

Winning the Game: The first player to reach a goal, such as a total of 200 points, wins.

Sentence Rules and Defending Your Sentence: Sentences can be short or long. Optionally, they must be grammatically correct and all punctuation is assumed. If a member of the Jury finds a sentence not sensible enough to be played, then the player may have the right to defend the sentence's sensibility and explain their justification. After a sentence's justification is given, the Jury may take a vote. Majority rules after a vote. Optionally, in the case of a hung Jury (a tie), the sentence may be accepted or rejected, depending on the embodiment.

EXAMPLE 3 Poker Style Play

This version may be similar to Example 1 above, except that a smaller number of cards (such as five to seven cards) may be dealt by the dealer. The dealer may choose poker style play, and the methods of play may then be followed as per the dealers discretion for games such as 5 card draw, Texas Hold-em, Follow the Noun (Queen), Omaha, Monkey Right and any variation of play for the game of poker.

Optionally, players may follow any betting practices now or hereafter known to this skilled in the art for each round. The highest point value of a 5-card (or other number) sentence is the winner of the hand.

EXAMPLE 4 Bridge, Spades or Hearts Style Play

This version is also similar to Example 1 above, except that only four players participate. The players may follow the known trick playing methods of bridge, spades or hearts by building four-card sentences. The person who lays the highest point value card takes the trick.

EXAMPLE 5 Solitaire Style Play

This version is also similar to EXAMPLE 1, except only one individual plays, in any of the variations of solitaire play plays the game.

EXAMPLE 6 Bar Play

In this example, a set of cards from the gaming system described above may be used in a social setting such as a bar, business meeting, waiting area, cocktail reception or other social setting. The cards may be used by one or more participants as an icebreaker or team-building exercise in where the participants may compare sentences, work together to form sentences, or form sentences that relate to a desired topic.

Thus, in various embodiments, a gaming system may include a set of cards. Each card may contain one or more words, and/or its variations, conjugations, or similar properties of language. In some embodiments, such as embodiments having educational purposes, the cards may also contain a description of the word types such as verb, adjective, noun, etc., and a brief definition of each use. For example a card may contain the words “run,” “runs,” “ran,” “running,” “runny” along with the descriptive terms “present tense verb”, “present tense verb”, “past tense verb”, “present tense verb” and “adjective” It may also contain examples of usage, such as “Noun—She got a run in her stocking,” “Verb—He runs around the bases,” and “Adjective—The eggs were runny.”

Optionally, the game may be produced in different editions, for people of different abilities and interests. Possible editions include, but are not limited to: (1) Junior or Entry Level Edition (for young players); (2) Family Edition (teenage-to-adult); (3) High Intelligence or Extreme Edition (designed for those with IQ of 140 or more); (4) Building your Business Lexicon (an using business terms); (5) Sports Edition (focusing on sports terms, teams, and/or players); (6) Arts Edition; (7) Editions for specific movies, movie studios, theme parks or other entities; (8) Teachers' Editions (with skill levels for specific ages or grades); (9) Hexagonal card 6 way Boggle style play Edition; (10) Animals Edition; (11) Cartoon Edition; (12) Gourmet Foods Edition; (13) Geography Edition; (14) Adult Party Edition; (15) Science Editions (biology, chemistry, weather, etc.); and (16) Licensed editions pertaining to books, movies or music.

One difference between editions can be the card/tile shape, and the number of words printed on each card. The levels of progression in difficulty from a standard rectangular card having two words, to a triangle with three words, to a square with four conjugations of the same word, to a pentagon with five words, depending on the players' knowledge and understanding of a language or their ability to translate one or more languages.

Electronic implementations of the game are possible and are included within the scope of the invention. For example, a game playable on a personal computer or hand held device such as a cell phone, personal digital assistant, portable media player, iPod®, Nintendo®, Game Boy®, or Palm Pilot®), or over the Internet, may include a virtual deck of cards containing selected words in a selected language or multiple languages. Optionally, online versions may be played through a dedicated website. Thus, computer program instructions may instruct a computing device to display the cards on a display and respond to user inputs or other actions so that game play proceeds in accordance with any of the embodiments described above. The instructions may be made available via any computer-readable carrier, including any memory device, data signal, or other carrier.

Optionally, electronic versions may use an automated grammar checker such as those known to those skilled in the art. Thus, electronic versions may automatically determine whether a sentence is acceptable, and therefore the decision of whether to score or reject a sentence may be automated. The electronic or virtual counterpart of the games described above may have virtual representations of the game board and cards such as those described above, and means for simulating elements of physical play, such as dealing, melding, discarding, scoring, etc.

The disclosure contained herein covers implementations of the game on all presently known and yet to be discovered media, including paper, permanent storage devices like floppy discs, CDROMs, DVDs, flash memory, hard disks and persistent or temporary memory devices.

Either the physical or electronic version of any game may include a timer of some sort to control the pace of the game. For example, this may be used in tournaments and tournament style play.

While the above description and examples are in English, I contemplate that the game can be produced and played in any written language, and I do not intend for my claims to be limited to English versions.

Since the invention is subject to modifications and variations, it is intended that the foregoing description and the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as only illustrative of the invention defined by the following claims.

It will be appreciated that various of the above-disclosed and other features and functions, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined into many other different systems or applications. Various presently unforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations or improvements therein may be subsequently made by those skilled in the art, each of which are also intended to be encompassed by the following claims. 

1. A gaming system comprising: a plurality of cards; wherein each card is marked with a plurality of words; wherein the words in the plurality of cards include various parts of speech so that complete sentences can be formed by playing selected cards adjacent to one another; wherein each of the words has a corresponding numeric value so that points may be counted for each complete sentence formed.
 2. The game of claim 1, wherein the cards are playing cards or tiles.
 3. The game of claim 1, wherein the cards have a non-rectangular shape.
 4. The game of claim 3, wherein the shape is pentagonal.
 5. The game of claim 1, wherein the game is in electronic form, and further comprising computer program instructions that instruct a computing device to display the cards and respond to user actions.
 6. The game of claim 1, wherein all of the words on any single card have a relation.
 7. The game of claim 6, wherein the relation on at least one of the cards comprises a relation of synonyms, conjugation or tense.
 8. The game of claim 6, where in the relation on at least one of the cards comprises a character set or place set.
 9. The game of claim 6, wherein the at least one of the cards comprises a set of words or phrases that are all prepositions, articles or conjunctions.
 10. The game of claim 1, wherein the numeric value is displayed on the card for at least some of the words.
 11. The game of claim 1, further comprising at least one wild card that may represent any word.
 12. The game of claim 1, further comprising a timer.
 13. A method of playing a game, comprising: receiving, by a first player, a hand of cards from a deck; wherein a plurality of the cards are marked with words or phrases, wherein the words include various parts of speech, wherein each of the words or phrases includes a numeric value; forming, by the player, a sentence from the hand of cards using words or phrases on the hand to form the sentence; and counting a point value for the sentence based on the numeric value of the words or phrases used in the sentence.
 14. The method of claim 12, further comprising: ruling, by a judge or jury including at least one second player, whether the sentence may be counted.
 15. The method of claim 12, further comprising: receiving by at least one additional player, an additional hand of cards from the deck; forming, by the at least one additional player, an additional sentence from the additional hand of cards; and counting a point value for the additional sentence based on the numeric value of the words used in the sentence.
 16. The method of claim 12, further comprising dealing additional hands until one of the players reaches a predetermined point value.
 17. The method of claim 12, wherein the player must form the sentence before a time limit ends.
 18. A computer-readable carrier containing instructions thereon for instructing a computing device to implement a game, the instructing including: providing a plurality of cards, wherein at least some of the cards are marked with words or phrases, wherein the words or phrases include parts of speech so that complete sentences can be formed by playing selected cards together, wherein each of the words or phrases includes a numeric value so that points may be counted for each complete sentence formed; dealing a hand of cards from the plurality of cards; receiving, from a player, a selection of cards from the hand that include words or phrases that together form a sentence; and scoring the sentence using the total numeric value of the words or phrases that form the sentence.
 19. The carrier of claim 17, wherein the instructions further include: determining whether the sentence contains acceptable grammar; and if the sentence does not contain acceptable grammar, requiring the player to modify or retract the sentence.
 20. The carrier of claim 17, wherein the instructions further include: determining whether the player formed the sentence within a time limit; and rejecting the sentence if the sentence was not formed within the time limit. 